


Whisper

by starlore



Category: Dead Space (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Drabble, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Regret, mentions of cremation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27572182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlore/pseuds/starlore
Summary: He comes to him in a whisper.--Short drabble-ish I wrote in 2014 on tumblr and part of a small cluster of other random (unrelated) fics I intend to post here. Gabe reflects on missed opportunities and the damage Aegis VII left in its wake. And the damage wasn't all physical.
Relationships: Lexine Murdoch-Weller/Gabe Weller, Nathan McNeill/Gabe Weller
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Whisper

**Author's Note:**

> I reread this to make sure I corrected any mistakes I missed the first time I posted it, but it's not beta'd otherwise. It's just a short little thing. It's set almost immediately (give or take) after Extraction, so some aspects of Gabe's thoughts about Lexine are not concrete/analogous with how they are in canon during Severed. I also wrote this in a weird style? So heads up for that if you're familiar with any of my other fics. (jk haha why would you be?)

One moment, Gabe thinks he’s alone, standing in the void of a dream. The next, his back is heavy, weighted with the remnants of a memory. A body, lean and lighter than his own, but slack. Soft breathing, rasped words, a hoarse chuckle. Slipping away, bit by bit, Gabe can never carry him fast enough.

Soon it’s lifeless. Stuck to him, melded to his back, sinking into his flesh. He tosses and turns in bed, tries to shake it off, but it never leaves. Not until he pays attention to the way the air circulates, listens to the wisps of a voice gently brushed against his ear.

“ _We’re going home_.”

Gabe’s eyes snap open. He sucks in a breath, drags a worn palm down his face. Lexine is still asleep, curled against his side like a kitten, vulnerable. He sighs, touches a strand of her dark hair. She’s innocent, beautiful, but never someone he had ever thought of loving. She was a remnant of that memory, something he clung to to replace the void Nathan left behind.

Yes, he loves her, yes he cares for her, but it’s not romantic. He knows the same is true for her, too. They pretend, they postulate, they go through the motions, they love. But it’s not romantic.

Nathan brought them together, then left them alone. They had no choice. One would serve to be the crutch of the other.

Gabe scowls as he does every morning that he wakes. He still feels Nathan’s hands on his, still sees his eyes reflected in every pane of glass, still hears his laugh carried on the breath of the recycled air of the Sprawl. He’s an annoyance, a lingering phantom Gabe can’t seem to shake. And Gabe hates himself because of it.

Why can’t he just let go?

Because the guilt rises and falls in him like a crashing wave, beating against his head, beating against the worn wall he built around himself. A wall placed, brick by brick, when he first entered the military, and continued to rise every day since. Nathan had drilled through, back then, tunneled into his heart like a mole, built a nest where he hoarded his empathy and care. Gabe loved that man, he was oftentimes loath to admit. He was too good at what he did, on the battlefield and off of it. Not only skilled with explosives and a premier marksman to boot, Nathan knew how to read Gabe like it was nothing; he was the only one that ever knew exactly what was going on in his mind. Gabe could hide nothing from Nathan.

It was frightening but thrilling all the same. He had never had such a deep connection to anyone before or after. No one knew how to simultaneously make Gabe feel so powerful and yet so weak. Vulnerable in his own way, but never exploited.

But now Nate was gone, leaving his mess behind for Gabe to tend to.

Lexine, admittedly, touched along the border of that internal wall, fingers deftly crumbling the older bricks. Dust in her hands, she kept plying, pushing the rubble aside, but the more she dug, the more collapsed around her, around Gabe. She had her moments of frustration, Gabe could see them in her hazel eyes like a fiery beacon. But there was nothing either of them could do. They love each other, but they aren’t in love.

The nest Nathan had made was cold, abandoned, sealed behind a padlock Gabe had long since lost the key to.

Gabe presses his face against the wall of the shower, touches the tile, thinks about the time he had lost. When he had seen Nathan again, for the first time in years on Aegis VII, he had the opportunity to readdress how he felt, ask if Nathan wanted to try again. He saw the look in his eyes, the surprise and happiness. Gabe had felt it in his chest, a rustling of buried feelings rushing to the top, something he had to suppress in the heat of the moment. But others already knew. His crew knew how much he adored Nathan; the stories of wartime, of how Nathan was so skilled and so strong, the way Gabe lingered on descriptions or his adoration or gratitude was unmistakable. No one would dare say it aloud, but there was no other interpretation to his passion that made sense other than a love deeper than the depths of space itself. And Gabe knew Nathan wanted to speak with him, alone. He knew he still cared, still loved, still craved the thunderous crash of their lips and the rough but measured embrace, coiled together into the early morning hours.

But there hadn't been time. One thing led to another so quickly, the colony in ruins in a matter of hours, and it left for no time to reminisce on the past beyond a few platitudes.

How he wishes their shuttle had landed on Aegis hours earlier. Maybe if it had, Gabe could have gotten that time back. Even just a minute more than what he got would have eased the way the memories continued to plague him, or so he told himself, fruitlessly. Missed calls and unanswered logs from years back are still lingering on Gabe’s RIG memory; he can’t bring himself to delete them.

The water can’t wash away the guilt.

He steps out of the bathroom, morning cycle just beginning with a click and whir of embedded clocks in their walls. Artificial lighting dims, rises, imitating the sun they all craved. Titan couldn’t bestow upon them the luxury as often as they wanted. Gabe hates it. Nathan had loved it.

Gabe dresses for work, fingers tired and eyes dulled. Every morning is the same. Lexine would stir eventually, get up, make him breakfast he wouldn’t eat. She understood. It had only been a month since the Sprawl Memorial Hospital pronounced Nathan dead, refused to allow anyone access to the body before they burned it.

Burned _him_.

All of that work, all of that sacrifice and pain and misery, just for Nathan to be thrown out to the dark expanse like refuse.

Gabe’s hand clenches, bruises his palm.

He would never get that relief, never feel Nathan’s hand on his, gripping and soothing.

“ _We’re going home_.”

It would never be home without him.


End file.
